Yogi Adityanath says will ensure all round development of Uttar Pradesh | Highlights

The BJP’s legislators in Uttar Pradesh will decide on Saturday evening who will become the chief minister of India’s largest state, exactly a week after the party crushed its opponents in a landslide victory.

Union minister Venkaiah Naidu announces Yogi Adityanath, Lok Sabha MP from Gorakhpur, as the BJP’s legislature party leader in UP, effectively making him the new chief minister.(ANI)

Yogi Adityanath, BJP’s Lok Sabha MP from Gorakhpur, was named Uttar Pradesh’s new chief minister on Saturday evening following a meeting of BJP’s legislators in Lucknow. The swearing-in ceremony will take place tomorrow, Union minister Venkaiah Naidu announced, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah in attendance. The announcement to name the chief minister of India’s largest state comes exactly a week after the BJP crushed its opponents in a landslide victory.

State party chief Keshav Prasad Maurya, considered a front runner for the post, has been named deputy chief minister along with Dinesh Sharma, the party’s national vice-president and Lucknow’s mayor.

All arrangements have been made for grand swearing-in ceremony on Sunday at a sprawling complex on the outskirts of Lucknow. The event is expected to be attended by a clutch of senior ministers as well as the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland and Jammu and Kashmir.

Here are the highlights of the day:

9pm: Uttar Pradesh chief minister-elect Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said that he would follow Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ slogan and exuded confidence that the state would march on the path of development.

8.10pm: Yogi Adityanath means development is now subordinated to majoritarianism of shamshan over kabristan. Harbinger to greater polarisation in 2019: Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari on Adityanath’s appointment.

2.45pm: Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya – for whom Rajasthan governor Kalyan Singh and union minister Uma Bharti are reportedly rooting for as UP chief minister – is likely to be present at the BJP legislature party meeting in Lucknow later in the day.

2.30 pm: A huge crowd has gathered at Barhat where Union minister Manoj Sinha, a frontrunner for Uttar Pradesh chief minister, has been to. The minister is returning to Varanasi.

Supporters of Union minister Manoj Sinha at Barhat .
(HT Photo)

1.45 pm: Hundreds of BJP workers have gathered at various towns in Uttar Pradesh in the first formal celebration of a thumping victory in the assembly elections. “It’s the Modi wave that had got us victory in 2014 and again in 2017. This wave will continue endlessly,” said Ashok Singh, a supporter outside BJP office in Lucknow.

12.20 pm: BJP MP Yogi Adityanath called to Delhi to meet Amit Shah. Sources say it is because he “strongly objected” to the appointment of some MLAs in the state ministry particularly Radha Mohan Das Agarwal. It was to resolve this issue and other matters related to eastern UP that he was called, according to sources.

11.45 am: “Section of media unnecessarily speculating,” says front-runner Manoj Sinha. He tells ANI that he is not in the race for the CM’s post and that it is the legislature party and the BJP’s parliamentary board that decides.

11.40 am: Supporters of Keshav Prasad Maurya and Yogi Adityanath stage demonstrations demanding that the candidates they support be made the state’s chief minister.

Yogi Adityanath supporters protest in Lucknow.
(ANI)

11.10 am: “Names in the media are purely speculative, we will be meeting the MLAs today evening and then decide,” Union minister Venkaiah Naidu tells ANI. He has reached Lucknow for the party’s legislative meeting.